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Saturday, October 31, 2015

Halloween Napoleonic Game

Five of us meet at Jay's on Halloween day for a fictitious encounter between the French and the Russians somewhere in Poland sometime during the Napoleonic Wars. We used a rule set Jay is calling "Stribling's Folly" which is based on the "Command and Colors" rules but without the cards and with many modifications. We used Jay's vintage (and not so vintage) 25mm Napoleonic forces.

Ed S. and Phil Y. were the French players, each with two major commands. Jay, Sean P. and Jim P. were the Russian players. Jay and Sean each had a major command, while Jim had a major command and the Russian reserve (cuirassiers and grenadiers).

The winner would be the first side to collect 14 enemy flags by destroying enemy units. The French won but it was a bloody victory for them. As usual we suggested more modifications to the rules which will be incorporated for our next game in 2016.

A look down the center and left of the French line. The "shiny stones" in front of the Russian units on the right indicate that an activation order has been given to that unit. Each commander had three automatic orders plus an additional number obtained by rolling a D6, with a 1-4 giving that many additional orders and a 5 or 6 giving none, except for the commander-in-chief who got 5 or 6 additional orders with those die rolls.

The French center and left (on the left) and the Russian center and right. We used four 4-figure stands of infantry, three 4-figure stands of cavalry, or two 1-gun/2-gunner stands of artillery for the respective units.

Jay's right flank Russians seize one of the villages that dotted the battlefield. The numbered markers denote the strength of each unit which are decremented when the appropriate "hit" dice are rolled.

One of Ed's left flank French commands faced Jay's troops from the previous picture. This shows the composition of the individual units very clearly.

In the middle of the picture, one of Jim's Russian grenadier battalions has seized a village, destroying the French garrison in the process. But they had advanced a little too far and became isolated. The French destroyed them the next turn with gunfire followed by a close assault. French cuirassiers and carabiniers are in the foreground. They will attack into the Russian center and shatter it.

Ed rolled for attack dice against one of Jay's unit. The die on the far right is actually balanced on its rounded corner. We've never seen that happen before!

A large cavalry scrum happened between Phil's right flank French cavalry (foreground lancers and dragoons) and Jim's left flank Russian cavalry (starting with dragoons who were destroyed and following with cuirassiers). Jim was trying to attack Phil's lancers with one of his cuirassier units but could only roll three "infantry" hits which of course don't count against cavalry. Ooops!

With Phil's dragoons (right) reduced to only 2 strength points, Jim closed with his Cossacks (left) to finish them off. He killed on strength point but the French dragoons attacked back with 1 point plus 1 heavy cavalry bonus point, rolled 2 "cavalry" hits, and destroyed the 2-strength point Cossack unit.